Most people associate American independent cinema with two names: Miramax and Sundance. The Weinstein brothers’ company and Robert Redford’s film festival certainly played a key role in sparking the greatest upswing of independent filmmaking to ever occur across the pond. But there were also other factors that allowed for the revolution which transformed the independent production and affected the way Hollywood operated. Independent filmmaking had always existed, it was just barely visible. But then, in the 1990s, came young filmmakers such as Steven Soderbergh, the Coen brothers, Spike Lee, and Quentin Tarantino, who were given the opportunity to promote themselves at film festivals and captivated both distributors and audiences that had been used to a completely different type of film.